


A Fragile Line. - A Star Wars Story

by cosmicbattles



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Armitage Hux Smokes, Canon-Typical Violence, Coming Out, Coming of Age, Dystopia, Emotional Baggage, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Everyone Is Gay, F/M, Family Issues, Female Solo, First Kiss, First Love, Fluff and Angst, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Rey, Friends to Lovers, Gay Luke, Heavy Angst, Hux is Not Nice, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren and Rey Are Related, M/M, Meddling Kids, Minor Finn/Rey, Minor Leia Organa/Han Solo, Misuse of the Force, Multi, Mutual Pining, Parents Han and Leia, Pining, Pining Poe Dameron, Political Alliances, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Protective Kylo Ren, Protective Poe Dameron, Revolutionaries In Love, Rey Skywalker, Sad and Happy, Seduction to the Dark Side, Sexual Tension, Sexy Times, Star Wars References, Star Wars: The Force Awakens Spoilers, War Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-23 12:45:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10719603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicbattles/pseuds/cosmicbattles
Summary: one would expect that the coming of age would be difficult in a world divided into a tyrannical new regime and a crumbling old republic. the daughter of the infamous general and senator, leia organa solo, finds it hard to sit still and look pretty when a force tells her war is coming and that her brother, a mentally unstable pawn of a mysterious enemy, is being groomed to fight for the other side with his strange abilities. the daughter of a legendary mystic recluse finds power growing within herself and finds herself in the center of a resistance aided by a defected member of the enemy government and the right-hand man to solo herself. additionally, the maniacal son of the commander of the new order works alongside the son of the senator and finds their relationship to be more than a rivalry and the trusted family friend of the solos finds himself involved with the girl he was sworn to protect.all is fair in love and war.[this is a dystopian au of the latest star wars trilogy (episode vii onward) with a main original character and a different chain of events based on the canon story and characters]





	1. an uneasy intuition

**Author's Note:**

> hey everybody, not sure how to open up, but i plan to make this fic a longterm i am committed to completing. i want to tell a story and really analyze the characters while staying true to them in an alternate setting of a dystopian, somewhat modern world where the order and the republic are fighting for global control. i also want to focus on the juxtaposition of the three related skywalkers/solos (rey, ben, and amidala [my original character]) and how while rey resides within the light side of the force and ben, known as kylo ren, falls to the darkness, amidala, a new character, sister to kylo, shares her loyalty with her brother and with the resistance. amidala is somewhat chaotic neutral and is additional proof of the hardships that come with being a child in the solo family, which offers ben/kylo ren some redemption (of course, not that much redemption, hee grows darker and more dangerous as the plot develops, don't you guys worry!). i also wanted to create a new and relatable harsh political climate of a divided world to add weight onto the character's shoulders as they choose their loyalties carefully and decide if blood is truly thicker than water. they young characters are, of course, falling in love with each other which makes it all the more beautifully painful. i hope you like this story, it's going to be my baby for the next few months and i'm going to work as hard as i can to tell an emotional and riveting story that's a spin of the series we know and love. <3 xx, victoria

She never saw a war coming. Instead, the very certain future laid as a dormant thought in the back of her mind, like a sleeping dragon she didn't ever want to wake, except one day it would wake up on its own. Unaware, Amidala Solo instead sat on the front steps of her uncle's house tapping her foot quickly, growing impatient of waiting for her cousin to leave today's lesson. Her ankle started to cramp. She craned her neck around to look up at the humble house behind her. The shingles looked as if they could slough off like dead skin if something brushed against them. The house was mediocrely painted a slate gray. Amidala focused on the brown spots of exposed wood where paint failed to fill in the crevices.

When the front door creaked open, she lowered her view to her cousin. Rey was beautiful, six months younger than her to the day, with freckles sprayed across her face. Her eyebrows were knit together, though. Today's lesson did not go well, Amidala noted. Rey was disappointed in herself and tried to be disappointed in her father, too, but he was just doing his job.

Amidala never asked for details on why Rey had to go to her father's house every other day for hours on end, but she understood the gist of it all. Her family was special. Her Uncle Luke was a war hero, thought to be a myth when he disappeared for twenty years, and reentered the scene of politics and overall civilization with the subtlety of a gun. People who did not understand said that their family had a sixth sense; some sort of force moving through them that let them see what no one else could see, sense what no one else could sense, and do what other people would deem impossible. When she was a little kid, Amidala was asked if her brother went away to another school because he had superpowers. Amidala would have laughed, but it wasn't funny. It put a target on her family's back. Her brother, Ben, never completed the schooling he went away for. Instead, he abused his abilities and ruined the school. It was rumored that he killed someone. It was rumored that he killed more than one person. When he came back home, he was not on speaking terms with his uncle, barely spoke to his parents, and was not sure how to treat his sister, five years his junior, who never hurt him like the rest of his family. Amidala could never read him. She was good at that, reading people, but he was too good at blocking her from viewing his emotional feedback. She wondered if that was because what was said about him was true. He knew that.

"And today?"

"Not good," Rey said. Her jaw was clenched with each word.

"You're getting better at it," Amidala offered. Her tone was always too soft, too much of a suggestion, for people to take her encouragement seriously, which is why she avoided talking altogether.

Rey scoffed, which was the reaction Amidala expected to get. "You don't even know what I'd be getting better at, Ami, no offense."

A reasonable amount of offense was taken.

Amidala considered asking Luke if what she sensed was what other people had or if she was just gifted with being perceptive. She was afraid he would think she was trying to be like everybody else if it was nothing and he would pity her and she was also afraid that if she did have this force moving with her through life, he would force her to train with him and "control" it. Her mother would probably be a nervous wreck and Ben would stop speaking to her. Amidala was half convinced he only spoke to her because she didn't pose an actual threat to his agenda of disassociating with the Solo family name.

She shook that train of thought out of her head. "Why can't Finn walk you home today?"

Rey smiled at the ground as they retreated down the winding walkway down the hilltop where the house lay. "Poe's teaching him to fly, again."

Amidala stopped breathing when she heard that name. Rey raised an eyebrow at her and kept talking.

"Thank you for walking me, things are getting quite hectic around here. Where we live, nearly everybody knows our faces now. Don't you think that's scary?"

Amidala nodded and bit the inside of her cheek. The metallic taste of blood entered her mouth. "Yes."

Rey raised another eyebrow at her cousin, so she expanded on her vague "yes".

"Things are getting worse, Rey. The Senate is dying, the Order is, if not already, going to win. My mom can only resist so much. There's only so much we can do until we're all just pawns of the Republic shoved in the faces of the Order."

"You're too pessimistic," Rey said quietly.

Amidala stopped walking and stepped in front of Rey. Her eyes grew wider. "Rey, you do realize that there's something wrong when the daughter of a senator has to walk you home to make sure you're safe, don't you?"

*

"Do you walk so fast because it makes you feel important?" Ben Solo asked the son of the commander of the First Order, Armitage Hux. Hux scoffed.

"I am important, Ren."

The streets of the downtown trading post were filled, bustling with life and greed and haste. It made Hux anxious, but Ben drifted through the sea of moving people with ease.

Do you walk fast because of all of the disorder? he sent in Hux's direction.

Get out of my head. We have work to do, you child.

The shorter of the two young men continued to weave through people quickly block after block while the taller, broader one drifted lazily with his shoulders hunched down and his eyes set on the back of the copper-haired head in front of him. He smirked. Child.

Hux looked down at his watch.

20:56.

"Ren, damn it all, we're late!" Hux groaned when Ren finally caught up to him and they stood side by side outside of a short brick building. Ren put his hands behind his back. "We're not late, he said nine o'clock. He isn't even here yet."

Hux rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Five minutes early is on time, on time is late."

The corner of Ren's mouth curled up. "You exhaust me, Hux."

Ben took the new name of Kylo Ren when he took up his new job.

Perhaps there aren't good guys and bad guys in life, perhaps everybody is a selfish narcissist with a skewed moral compass when it comes down to it, but the man in which Ben changed his identity for was a man of wicked intentions. He wanted to rebuild an empire that laid on a foundation of tyranny and terror and did not care who he used or ruined in the process. He had abilities, too, stronger than Rey, stronger than Ben, and even stronger than Luke.

Hux worked alongside him. They went through schooling together as simultaneous friends and rivals. The relationship had not changed much since they became co-commanders in an underground mission to restore the empire. Hux would soon take over his father's position in the Order following an untimely death. Neither of them knew this now. Ren and Hux just identified as what they feared they were: two kids who were getting into something way over their heads.

One hand landed on each shoulder. Both of them flinched. Hux looked up at Ren. Snoke's here now.

A sharply dressed old man smiled up at both of them. "My boys, come, we have much to discuss."

*

The tarmac laid still at dusk. Old Resistance fighter jets slept tightly lined up in their rows, unused since the war. X-wings napped gracefully tucked in hangars. Amidala breathed in the sweet air of the dying summer and inhaled the chill in the air in a desperate attempt to get some oxygen in her chest. A figure lay underneath a jet, working diligently. The dark haired girl looked around the wide and barren tarmac. She closed her eyes and felt the planes sleep. They have slept for so many years, they're going to be well-rested by the time they wake up, she thought. She opened her eyes at that realization. Poe always called this abandoned Resistance base a "plane graveyard". Something in Amidala always knew they'd be used again. They'd have to be. Because a war is coming.

When she reached the only plane in the middle of the tarmac, Amidala looked down at the young man working on it. He started to slide out from underneath when he noticed a figure hovering over him.

"Don't bump your head," Amidala said.

With that, he hit his head against the metallic belly. He laughed as he got to his feet, rubbing his head.

"Thank you for that, princess."

Amidala rolled her eyes. "How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not a princess?"

"One more time than a number of times I'll say it."

She raised her eyebrows.

"I've worked for your mother my whole life. To me, she still deserves a crown. Hell, it might be easier than being a general."

There was a pause. Poe Dameron started brushing the dirt from his pants and looked at her.

"You mean senator?"

He fought to find an answer. He settled with, "yeah."

He hated lying to Amidala. She had grown so much since he had last seen her. The whole past year he spent extracting information from old bases and old friends for Senator Leia Organa to help maintain unity within the Republic. Amidala found that mission hilarious and called him "Embassador Dameron" for weeks until she became bored with her own joke. She was almost a completely different person. She was quieter and more self-aware. She looked older, her features now severe and striking and her body soft and shaped. She was no longer a child with a round, smiling face and a bony frame that spent hours playing outside, getting burnt by the sun.

Her mother started grooming her subconsciously, much to her father's dismay. Amidala acknowledged her role in a politically divided world. The daughter of an ex-princess and retired war general with rumored abilities had to be poised and charming to her advantage. She was placed in a world where she did not have the privilege of indifference. She wanted to fight for the universal rights of everyone in her world. The Republic shared a common goal with her, which made it easier for her to sacrifice her childhood for diplomacy. The city in which she lived in was small; raised alongside other government leaders was like being raised under a microscope. People did not like Luke or Rey and the other youth Leia welcomed into her home. Rey was approached by a group of First Order officers a while back. Amidala helps walk her home from Luke's now. She made things right in her own way. She makes Rey feel safe in an increasingly tense political climate. She does what her mother asks. She punched Armitage Hux in the nose when she ran into her brother and him at a trading post.

Poe wanted to tell Amidala about the new wave of Resistance. He wanted to tell her about the recent assassination attempts within the Senate, and how her brother has been disappearing at night with the son of an enemy general to go downtown and how he always comes back acting odder than usual. He feels a tugging in his chest when he looks down at her puzzled expression, the obviously vulnerable trust she holds in him.

"I want to show you something," he says instead.

*

The train back into the part of the city where Ren lived moved about 483 kilometers per hour. He sat with his head in his hands while Hux held onto a rail, looking out of the window at the illuminated cityscape. Pathetic, he thought. So many little people feeling big just because they live and work in tall buildings made of glass. Hux wanted to build something big. He wanted to make something that had a larger effect than its size. Everything around him was so fragile. He wanted to prove that.

He looked down at Ren. The meeting did not go well. Ren did not find any evidence of a new resistance group although Snoke senses one. After a series of passive-aggressive remarks made by his boss about his lack of concentration and incompetence, Ren was left in a bad mood to say the very least.

"Hey," Hux said. "You can't find what doesn't exist, Ren."

"Are you trying to console me?" Ren looked up. Hux couldn't tell if he was agitated or amused.

"No."

"Yes, you were, and it was a feeble attempt," Ren mumbled.

Hux looked back out the window, defeated. Ren's hand moved up to touch Hux's free hand. "But thank you."

Hux moved his eyes back down in surprise. He wanted to recoil his hand back, but he couldn't find it in him to move it. He nodded curtly and tried to look back out at the pathetic city, making sure he kept the man below him in his peripheral vision.

*

"I'm so stupid!" Rey groaned, pulling at her hair with both of her hands. Finn smiled at her sadly. "Rey, you're trying. You're new to this. Don't beat yourself up over it."

After he defected from the Order and met Rey, the girl who made him realize he was more than a nameless orphan, he made it his personal mission to help her in any and every way possible. He is indebted to her in the same way that Poe is indebted to him. They all helped each other be more than what a series of numbers or a prison cell or a life of solitude made them feel they were. Rey was not stupid.

The roof of Rey's other father's home was where they usually sat after a day of bad training. Rey would look out across all of the pine trees into the darkness of the night and she would find comfort in the simple fact that light pollution did not exist on the outskirts of the suburbs where they sat. She knew Amidala was right. The closer you got to the city, the closer you got to people, the more complicated everything became. Finn would just sit beside her on these nights and watch her fall apart and then compose herself with each breath becoming more stable. When she was calmed down, he would help her through a window, say goodnight to her father, and go home like clockwork. He wondered if she appreciated this or expected it. She was the first friend he ever had. 

He had no idea what he was doing. In his defense, none of them did.


	2. tenderness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> amidala has too much on her plate and poe is afraid he can't help her as much as he'd like.  
> ren reads hux's signals and makes a questionable decision.  
> rey finds comfort in having a family but is unsettled when she acknowledges her own emotions about certain somethings and a certain someone.
> 
> things are only going to get worse.

"How safe is it up here?" Amidala laughed out these words breathlessly, looking out into the vast open sky. Fear and excitement inflated her chest and when she breathed out when she laughed, the excitement and fear she breathed out filled the cockpit where her and Poe Dameron occupied. The well-lit streets of the cities looked like veins. The trees in the distance looked like the tiny plastic figurines that would surround a model train set her father put out every wintertime around the family fireplace. Amidala tried to swallow down the lump in her throat in an attempt to dismiss this unwanted nostalgic thought. She tried to stay focused on the beauty in front of her instead. Poe Dameron tried to focus on flying the plane and ignore how her cheeks glowed in the dim light and how her eyes grew wider. Her spindly fingers touched the side window and lazily grazed the glass.

"You're safe," he said, sounding more serious than he intended to.

"You've always kept me safe," she said. She wasn't sure if she said it out loud or not. She didn't necessarily care either, she was a thousand feet in the air and a thousand feet away from the life she was growing so tired of living.

"Things are getting too complicated. The world is full of conflict and hate and fake diplomacy. I don't want to live in a world like that. I want to go to a gala and _dance_. Tomorrow, I'll be saying hello to people who want my family silenced and gone and asking them how their families are and having my face hurt from forcing to smile when I say 'congratulations on your promotion! Congratulations on your engagement, commander! You want me _dead_!'"

Poe looked at her with concern.

"Sorry I raised my voice," she said quietly.

"Do it more often," he said immediately, eyes fixed on her. Concern was welling in his chest. He felt hot in the face. He's seen people die, sure, but hearing someone who used to appear so young and lively say she doesn't want to live in the world she lives in made his stomach twist in knots. The world fucks everyone over, turns everybody into a cynic, but God, _not her_. She used to catch fireflies with her bare hands and release them and look at Poe when they were kids and say something like, "they can go anywhere, anywhere!" She would say something so obvious and profound and remind the young boy that life wasn't so terrible after all. She became a reason for him to tame his own recklessness.

"Keep her safe," Leia would say. "There's only so much Han and I can do. She's a smart girl, but not as strong as you'd think."

He never broke that promise. But can he protect her from herself? From the inevitable civil war?

"Do what more often?"

"Be angry. You're allowed to be. Sometimes. If you're angry, raise your damn voice, you know?" he said. It was a weak attempt at giving advice, but she absorbed his words and finally met his eyes, smiling weakly.

And with that smile, the plane took a nosedive towards the ground.

Poe jolted back and grabbed the yoke to regain control. "

"Did you let go?" she laughed. She _screamed_ laughing, throwing her head back against the seat laughing at the ceiling.

"It was on autopilot!"

"No, it wasn't because we _dove to the ground_."

He laughed, gripping the yoke until his knuckles turned white. "Sorry, Ami."

He flipped a switch. Autopilot.

He didn't know what to do with his hands when she was this close to him. He couldn't tuck the piece of hair out of place back behind her ear. He couldn't reach out to touch her face, that velvety smooth skin that was appearing more and more worn every day. The skin that used to turn bronze in the summer, but is now pallid from not spending hours in the sun like she used to when she was a child; when she was allowed to be a child. She's eighteen now. Her mother clicks her tongue in joking distaste when her knees are exposed and bruised and she "couldn't remember to put on tights, couldn't you?"

He would hate to kiss her, hate to make her feel like one more person in her life she is supposed to trust is making her grow up too fast.

She's eighteen now. He'll be twenty-six in a month. Young enough to be considered accomplished, he was still too old to lean across the foot of space between them and into her space and take his free hands and touch her face, press his forehead against hers, and breathe her in.

Which is why he was surprised when she wrapped one cold hand around his. He looked at the interlocked hands and then up at her.

"I told you I want to dance at the gala," she said, still looking at the hands, carefully gliding her thumb across the back of his hand. "Don't stand me up."

*

"It's _bullshit_ , that's what the whole thing is! Do you think that one little dance is going to fix the mess the Order's made? Like we're a bunch of high schoolers? Dress up our daughter and let those spineless young officers sniff around her? Put the boy in front of the people who have been scrutinizing us for _his_ behavior for years now! Display us like a perfect family? Well, we're _not_ , Leia. We have never been."

"Han," Leia began, firmly, but stopped when she turned around to face her daughter who had just entered the front door. "Where were you? I was worried sick."

Poe appeared behind Amidala. She was frozen where she stood.

"She was with me, Leia, I'm sorry, I know the hour is late."

Amidala said nothing.

"Well, thank you, Poe, sorry if you caught us in the middle of something," Han said and put his hands in his front pockets.

Amidala said nothing.

"We're in the middle of nothing," Leia interjected.

Poe nodded, looking in front of him at the silent statue of a girl who was laughing minutes before.

"We are." Han was gritting his teeth. "Goodnight, Dameron, thank you."

He walked quickly away, brushing past his wife.

Leia sighed. "You should've gotten yourself home earlier. Tomorrow's a busy day."

She began to turn around to retreat after her husband but Amidala at last spoke.

"Oh, the gala? Of course, reprimand me instead of acknowledging that you two never stop fighting. I can't even step foot through the threshold without having your childish behavior thrown in my face."

"What did you say?" she asked, not to be condescending but out of genuine confusion.

Poe didn't know if he should stay or go.

Amidala considered repeated herself. But she didn't. Instead, she chose to say something that would sting.

"This is why Ben doesn't talk to you anymore."

And with that, she walked away coolly, up the stairs, and out of Poe's line of view.

"Amidala," he groaned, following her up, ignoring Leia telling him to "let her go! Give her space!"

The hallway to her room felt miles long and unbalanced.

"Amidala!"

He walked past the bathroom and backed up when he saw her crumpled figure on the ground with the door slightly ajar.

He cautiously opened the door.

She looked up at him, eyes tired with her nose and lips turning red. Her face was wet.

"Hey," he said softly, walking in slowly and kneeling in front of her.

She just said silently on the tile, tears spilling from her unfocused eyes. She stared out at the crown molding on the floor. His stomach turned again. Her favorite coping mechanism was withdrawing from reality completely, focusing on a line in the wall and letting every thought in her head escape into the empty space in front of her. Except this time there was no screaming from downstairs and meaningless hurtful remarks being thrown around, traveling down the hall and into earshot and space wasn't empty.

"I'm becoming more and more convinced every day," she began. She looked up at him. "That you're the only good thing left."

 _What a burden that is_ , he thought.

*

"This is your stop, Ren," Hux said, nudging a very unfocused Kylo Ren's leg with his leg.

"I can take the next one back, your stop is next anyway," he yawned. Hux tried to look away when he yawned, but he couldn't help watching the ridiculous face made by the most ridiculous man he had ever had the displeasure of meeting. A painful reminder that he's human. Ren's humanity made it harder for Hux to hate him. There was a time where he truly hated Ben Solo, but it seemed impossible now for someone unspoken reason.

"Do you like how I yawn?" Ren asked, sounding bored.

"Get out of my head, have some decency," Hux replied, irritated. His ears turned pink.

"I'm afraid I don't have much of that."

"Well, you're walking me home now, that's pretty decent," Hux mocked. He added, "and unnecessary. I'm a grown man."

Not a big one, Ren thought loudly, intentionally sending it through the channel he constructed between him and Hux when they were merely school children. Hux could resist it if he wanted to, he wasn't feeble-minded like half of the poor slobs in the city that Ren manipulated out of boredom from time to time.

"Shut up," he said. "I'm two inches shorter than you."

"Three, when you're barefoot," Ren yawned again, standing up and grabbing a pole for stability. His hand was uncomfortably close to Hux's. The skin of their pinky fingers were painfully close, not touching but close enough to call it that.

Hux looked at his feet, grinding his teeth. He remembered the first time he wasn't wearing shoes in front of Ren. For some reason, being barefoot brought him a sense of overwhelming self-awareness and vulnerability.

Ren climbed through his bedroom window and somehow managed to avoid being detected by Hux's father militaristic security system. Hux was asleep at his desk. He was twenty years old, a cadet in a local military academy run by the early founders of the Order, studying his ass off nightly until he would pass out from exhaustion, textbooks and data pads as his pillow.

Ren wanted to show him something he had just learned from his mentor, who would later become his official boss, involving his strengthening abilities. Ren could heal people now. Ren could have practiced this on one of two people. He could trip his sister in a telekinetic manner and hope she would bruise so he could heal her. But he wanted to impress someone－ that someone being Hux.

"Psst, Hux. _Hux_. Damn it," Ren opened the window himself after desperate attempts to whisper-shout in order to rouse Hux from his sleep.

When he stepped into his room, the room smelled just the way he imagined it always would.: clean and unexpectedly woodsy, just like Hux's hair. _That beautiful, fiery hair._ A deep flush filled Ren's face. He would meditate on this later. Or punish himself for his stupidity through starvation or something.

Hux groaned and woke, looking up at the figure. He opened his mouth to shout but Ren ran up to him, covering his mouth with his hand. He smirked at how small Hux's face looked when shrouded by Ren's hand.

"I want to show you something," Ren had said. He noted Hux's sprained wrist that he got from hand to hand combat training today. His hand moved down to the wrist, taking three of his fingers and massaging them over the carpals, up his arm towards the radius.

"How did you know I hurt my wrist today? How the hell did you get in here?" Hux whispered, feeling threatened.

_No need to be afraid of me, I'm healing you._

_I have every reason to be, you snuck into my room, you maniac._

_I've always liked when you insult me._

_You're ridiculous._

His wrist was set back into place. It felt better, if not stronger, than before. He stood up.

Ren opened his eyes but did not remove his fingers from their place around Hux's wrist. "You're welcome. I hope it was worth showing you."

Hux sat back in his seat, dumbfounded, speechless, relieved, feeling something else he couldn't put his finger on. He cannot put his finger on what it was that made him feel so afraid when the seventeen-year-old boy snuck through his window that night, only to show him some magic trick he had learned. 

Ren smiled. "You're broadcasting, Hux."

Hux refocused on the current time, realizing this was his stop to his apartment in the district inhabited by the children of old Empire military leaders who were trained by the Order. He nodded to Ren and got off of the train, only to notice Ren was walking right behind him. Ren had his hands in his pockets and looked around at the platform. They were alone.

 _Oh, he's going to kill me, isn't he?_ Hux thought loudly.

Ren smiled again, that rare, unanticipated smile that made Hux's stomach climb up into his throat.

Hux felt cornered as Ren stepped into his space.

Ren acknowledged this feeling of loss of control from Hux. Hux hated it. Ren _reveled in it._

"Ren, what now?" Hux tried his best to sound annoyed, but his voice was small, so small, and barely audible.

"I want to show you something."

Hux's face cautiously moved close to Ren's.

So Ren had kissed him, unsure how, but Hux didn't resist it. Instead, the redhead's arms wrapped around his neck, hands immediately finding their way into his hair. He's wanted to put his hands in those dangerously dark waves since they were adolescents, even when Hux loathed Ren and thought of him as nothing more than a sulking, looming ingrate that cursed him with acquaintanceship, he wanted his hands in that stupidly beautiful head of hair. At long last, there they were. At first, the kiss was soft and closed-mouthed, tender and gentle. Ren moved his hands to Hux's waist, which was smaller than he anticipated it to be. Hux parted Ren's lips with his own and kissed him hard; he kissed him harder than Ren had expected. Ren breathed out a gasp against his mouth, accidentally breaking the kiss. He looked terrified when his eyes opened to meet Hux's. Hux unraveled himself from him and stepped back. 

"I'll see you," he managed to say, moving his fingers to his tingling lips, wondering if what had happened was real and if he should expect to drop to the floor dead at any given second.

He walked away swiftly into the darkness, his figure only illuminated by the fluorescent lights that lined the platform. Ren let him walk away, more confused and hurt than he would have liked to admit.

*

"Do I really have to go to this thing?" Rey asked, drying her face, looking in mirror and frowning.

"Yes, you'll keep a low profile, but you're going," Wedge Antilles told his daughter. He added in a joking voice, "And that's final, young lady."

He wagged his finger in her face and she laughed, rolling her eyes. He didn't care that she's been "putting him through hell" like most teenagers do, or so he's been told by friends. He was just happy to have her back. The last time he saw her before she found Luke again was a decade ago. He hardly recognized her, she was all grown now and had her father's nose and eyes. She looked nothing like Wedge, except for maybe his lean frame and his height. Surrogacy is messy like that. Everything was messy when he started a family with Luke.

"And stop frowning in that mirror, you're going to be so radiant it'll be hard to keep a low profile. Still, no mind tricks, you hear?" he added.

She smiled. _Mind tricks._ How did he and Luke ever end up together?

"You look like your father. So much. You know that?"

Rey's expression softened. "Dad, you don't have to bring it up."

"Your father and I had great times. We were pilots, the best of friends, I swore I'd love him forever. But the war changed him when he discovered what he was capable of, and who his father was...I digress. People change. Just because two people are no longer good for each other doesn't mean they're no longer good people."

Wedge said good people as two separate beats, emphasizing the point to his daughter that he himself had held onto as his own personal doctrine. Luke was still a good person, a bit of a recluse, but a good person.

This stuck with Rey. She immediately thought of Finn. She wondered if they'd always be good for each other, in any sense. She couldn't imagine him changing. He was gentle but fiercely loyal, fearless and scared of everything. _Perfect._ Her face flushed.

"Well, I'll leave you to get done up, your father will be here at six, okay?"

"Thanks, dad." Dad still tasted new in her mouth. It was good, a word she never thought she would be able to use.

"Rey." The older man leaned in the doorway, unsure of himself. "I love you, okay?"

"Yeah," she said, nodding. She smiled. She looked back into the mirror and tucked her short hair behind her ear. When she looked back at the doorway, Wedge was gone. She immediately wished she had said 'I love you' back, and yet she didn't know how to say it, how she felt. All she knew was that it was a good feeling to have a family in times like these.


	3. thinking too much

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> amidala thinks too much about a lot of things in this chapter, mainly her family and if she's a bad person for giving ben the benefit of the doubt and siding with him over her parents always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a short chapter - oops! i've been VERY sick for the past month and catching up with school has had to become my number one priority :(

Amidala wondered what it would be like to take someone’s breath away while two droids and three over-enthusiastic stylists flitted around her. She tried not to focus on any of them. Her mother seemed excited to have been able to access some of the Republic’s chief hair stylists and makeup artists to make the gala more of an “occasion” for her and less of a burdening obligation that would last four agonizing hours. 

It would still be a burdening obligation she wanted little to do with that would last four agonizing hours.

She looked at herself in the obnoxiously brightly lit mirror. Her face was bare at this point and the sides of her hair that would normally fall on her face were pinned back with thin, silver clips. A droid behind her began to loosely curl her long, black-brown waves with an extension to its arm. Technology still fascinated Amidala, as many advances in droid programming occured in her youth.

“For structure,” it said. “Can’t have you looking like you got caught in the rain.”

Amidala smiled. She liked having rudely candid droids around. It entertained her. Her grandfather’s old droids still lived in her mother’s home, the tall, communications droid proved to be more of a liability than a helping hand but she liked having him around regardless. He was miserably cynical and honest to a fault.

The styling droid had a point. Amidala usually let her thick waves do what they wanted without brushing them out, making them look more deconstructed than it used to be when her mother brushed her hair every day; her hair now resembled her brother’s hair.

Han always told the two that they had “damn good heads of hair” that they “of course, got from their old man”. Leia would then lightly punch him in the arm. 

Amidala wasn’t sure what to consider Han and Leia. They were her parents, of course, but Han was hardly home and came just about as frequently and unpredictably as the rain. Leia was tied to her position in the Senate. 

Ben was a mess, but a mess she was determined to take care of. She was glad her parents asked him to attend, even gladder when he didn’t laugh in their faces or start a screaming match with them.

She wondered again if she would take anyone’s breath away tonight. Young cadets would offer to walk her home during her days at school and several unfortunate boys would give her flowers or letters in which she would then smile, let out a sad sigh, thank them, and dismiss them. She never had an interest in dating boys in high school. She was fiercely fixated on her schoolwork and her political science and history classes. She knew she would have to be a senator like her mother: it was her familial and moral obligation. The only thing she thought herself to be remotely good at was helping others. Kissing boys who she thought were handsome didn’t fit into that equation.

She wanted someone to notice her as more than a public figure. She planned out what she wanted to look like tonight with the droids because the human stylists were far too opinionated to give her an easy time. Part of her goal was to make a statement; she wanted to separate herself from her mother and stand beside her brother. She planned what he would wear as well. He had his fair share of emotional baggage. His proneness to outbursts of anger put Amidala on edge. He was too powerful and had way too little self-control for his own good, but she kept a close eye on him and constantly reminded him that she’s his ally no matter what. 

Homicidal and troubled or not, he was her family and he protected her. 

She thought back to when she was thirteen years old and a group of boys a few grades above her were in a diner that Ben and her stopped in after school. Ben bought her a milkshake and tried to explain to her that there has to be a balance in life and that it’s okay to be selfish. He was panicking after Amidala unknowingly opened up a channel of communication between the two and suddenly she was entering his thoughts with little jokes and riddles. She thought it was because they were close. Ben knew better and told her to keep this to herself: the last thing he wanted was for Luke to make her into one of his projects－ to use her force-sensitivity as a way to create another holier-than-thou pillar in the Skywalker bloodline. Amidala drank from the thick, bending straw cautiously, confused as to what he was going on about. 

Just then, a boy in her grade shouted, “the banquet will be televised on the holonet! Can’t wait to see Amidala Solo’s debut. I might just want to be a cadet for the Order to get my hands on her.”

His friends laughed, making loud noises while a few others held their hands in their faces saying things like “c’mon, that is so  _ messed up _ ” and “Cain, she’s  _ thirteen _ , man”.

Amidala lowered her head and took a long sip from the drink in front of her, hunching her shoulders up when she noticed her face turning red. She wasn’t angry, she just didn’t understand why she was a subject of public interest for her parents being well-known and the worst feeling she felt in that moment wasn’t the shame of being objectified, it was that her parents legacy would follow her everywhere she went in life.

Just then, the boy, Cain’s, face turned white. He couldn’t speak and his eyes widened in fear. Amidala turned from the group of raucous boys only to see her brother deeply concentrated. She notices his hand extended under the table, beginning to twist to the left.

“Ben,” she said softly. “Don’t.”

Secretly, she wanted to see what he would do next.

So he did.

Cain’s arm broke in half.

“C’mon,” Ben said, cooly. He put on his coat and left money on the table, probably more than he owed. Amidala kept her eyes fixed on the boy, sweating and pale as a sheet. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.

And then he started screaming in pain.

Amidala grabbed her jacket and hastily followed her brother out.

“It was that  _ Solo boy. _ He’s  _ crazy!” _ Cain shouted after them.

 

_ No one is going to  _ **_debut_ ** _ you, _ he signaled her,

_ Okay. _

_ I will protect you.  _

_ I know, brother. _

 

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up at this memory. Why didn’t she fear what her brother was capable of? Was it because she trusted his judgement or was it because she knew at least he would never hurt  _ her? _

This thought unsettled her further. Amidala grew vaguely disappointed in herself. 

“A significant improvement!” the droid exclaimed, interrupting her train of thought. She was grateful for this interruption; this train of thought and self-analysis would only lead to making this day even more miserable for her, as she would likely dwell on this disappointment for the rest of the night.

When she looked at herself in the mirror she saw that the work in progress  _ was _ a significant improvement. Her long hair cascaded down her back in smooth curls as opposed to the usual waves that were more than prone to falling victim to humidity. A man started brushing cosmetics on her face and went on to talk about all sorts of useless things to her like what’s in and what up and coming Order officials are  _ “so good-looking!”  _ and how much Amidala looked like her mother right now. This struck her as interesting. Amidala always kept her hair down in a subconscious attempt to differentiate herself from her mother who was infamous for always having her hair up. Amidala had her mother’s eyes and nose but a tall, slimmer frame like her father. 

Ben had his father’s face and his mother’s smile. His frame was larger than both his mother and his father, standing at six feet, three inches. Ben always seemed taller, however, but older siblings always seem so much bigger to their younger sibling. Once Armitage Hux suggested he seems so much bigger because he’s an actual dark cloud, just looming and sulking over everybody looking absolutely miserable. Amidala laughed at this. The feed of energy she received when in a room with the young esteemed officer and her brother was something she didn’t understand, and even if she did understand it she couldn’t possibly try to read their signals in full. There was something there that overwhelmed the shallow hatred they tried so hard to have for each other; it wasn’t trust, but closer to something along the lines of companionship.

She immediately thought of Poe the night before, looking at her in a way she was unfamiliar with. She wondered if her brother looked at Hux like that or if Finn looked at Rey in that way.

She also remembered she was owed a dance that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if u missed any hidden meaning or just need a summary :: she loves her brother (so much!) and wonders if he has found partnership in a family enemy, but she is not angered by the possibility. instead, she thinks of poe, who owes her a dance later tonight. meanwhile, she's strapped in a chair by senate stylists who are gonna make her look G O O D !


End file.
